Senior Telecom, IT Professional & Cloud Specialist
Science and technology have been widely recognised as important factors for the economic transformation of countries with economies in the transition phase.
In today’s world, it’s interesting to note that the digital businesses are focused on integrating digital technologies, such as social, mobile, and cloud, in transforming how the governance of a country can be improved.
The collection of “Big Data” and the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has made a perfect environment for new Artificial intelligence (AI) applications and services to grow. The strength of digital technologies — social, mobile, analytics and cloud — doesn’t lie in the technologies individually instead it stems from how companies integrate them to transform their businesses and how they work.
There are instances of companies who are focused on people analytics and how they are integrating wearables, sensors, digital data and analytics to identify who talks to whom, where they spend time, their buying patterns, their areas of interest etc.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been receiving increased attention in the recent years. Innovation, made possible through the Internet, has brought AI closer to our day-to-day lives. Investments in AI are increasing, and governments are putting in efforts to understand what the technology could mean for their citizens.
If we talk about the healthcare space it’s predicted that the digital revolution can save around $300 billion from being absorbed in this sector, especially in the area of chronic diseases.
Telemedicine can be a better way of managing chronic disease than the traditional visit to doctor’s clinics or hospitals. With telemedicine, the doctors and hospitals can also allocate the time and resources prudently for treatments which are urgent in nature.
Mobility and cloud access have been offering tremendous help in increasing the accessibility for patients and doctors alike. By 2018, it’s estimated that bulk of interactions with health care facilities will occur through mobile devices. Doctors have already started using smartphones and medical apps. Hospitals, insurance companies, and doctors’ offices are now storing patient medical records through the cloud, enabling the patients to access the test results online 24/7. Given HIPAA laws relating to patient privacy, it’s probably no surprise that this has also led to an increased focus on data protection and security.
It’s already a reality that machines can help one manage his or her own well-being without setting foot in a doctor’s chamber. Big data is definitely becoming a critical element in the digital world, and health care is no exception.
Though you can measure customer satisfaction, perhaps a more important benefit is that it can recommend preventative treatment by identifying the risk factors. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), the increasingly connected mobile and wearable devices are used to create a cohesive medical report accessible anywhere by the health care provider like those of hospitals/ nursing homes/ elder care homes.
This data is not only useful for an individual patient but also can be used to study and predict health care trends for the community, cities or even countries. The government can accordingly come out with befitting governing policies.
With the world becoming more mobile, it’s clear that AI can play a potential role in improving the mobile security and cyber security in general, both in defensive and offensive security measures.
Machine learning can be better utilised to interpret data so that the organisations can detect security threats and vulnerabilities more effectively. The leading use of artificial intelligence solution tools lay in the area of predictive analytics.
This specialised area of analysis uses data mining, statistics, modelling, machine learning and other AI tools to make predictions about the future and also can detect behavioural patterns and trends.
Machine learning algorithms are important, AI applications that have been rated high among respondents can be seen in a broad range of verticals. Airlines or Railways can use algorithms to set pricing according to the demand, while content providers can employ the technology to spark consumers interest.
These algorithms can also be used in fitness tracking wearables, which can collect data and provide users with the real-time coaching as they work out.
AI has already started illustrating its potential applications through technology such as smart vehicles and buildings. Smart vehicles with inbuilt IoT applications have huge advantages in terms of comfort and security for the elderly and the disabled, and smart buildings use automation to reduce energy consumption and enable the whole building to work more efficiently. Additionally, AI can even assist governments to work more effectively and better protect those at risk.
Will cyber security give AI a new life and a second chance in an industry desperate to provide protection against cyber threats? Cybersecurity could become one of the best AI applications that the business world has seen.
As we are becoming more mobile, it’s evident that AI will have a potential role to play in improving mobile security and cyber security overall. This can be achieved through the use of machine learning to better interpret data so that organisations can detect security threats and vulnerabilities more effectively.
Hackers are becoming smarter day-by-day and trying to evade static signature detection techniques by coding the virus in such a way so that it can change the signature.
With the latest ransomware attacks and increased usage of polymorphic or encrypted code segments by Malware creators which are usually very difficult to detect through standard signature based, the behaviour-based malware detection is becoming more effective as the system tries to detect the behaviour instead of its code and with the use of AI and Machine Learning techniques, you have the potential of detecting the threat before the damage is done.
The benefits of using AI to improve security is immense and can be seen through certain applications, which were designed to help develop systems for detecting, evaluating and patching software vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
Similarly, the way mobile security and computing have increased productivity, flexibility and choices; AI also has the potential to bring in a new era of security and efficiency.
The recent advances in AI have not been due to the radical innovations in learning algorithms, but rather by the enormous amount of data enabled by the Internet. The fact being the increasing trend of IoT units installed base as per the table below:
IoT Units installed base by category (Millions of Units)
The current growth in AI and machine learning is tied to a trend, in the amount of data getting generated combined with the decreasing cost of data storage. With around 3 billion online users and an estimated 9 billion connected devices, machine learning can utilise this as training data for learning algorithms, developing new rules to perform increasingly complex tasks. With the availability of powerful computers and the ability to connect with remote processing power through the internet, makes it possible for the machine-learning techniques which process an enormous amount of data.
Digital tutoring programmes are being increasingly adopted to reduce the time to train new recruits with the new skill sets. Ministries or Government linked companies can take advantage of this to train their task force at a faster pace.
Software defined network combined with AI will be another interesting thing to note in the future. The network is not just serving big customers or high-valued customers only but it is serving everybody.
We are going to witness a shift from application-centric solution to a platform-centric network solution that is going to support better governance in the near future.
We often think that innovation spreads out from brilliance on the part of a few gifted individuals, however, in reality, all these new ideas and technologies actually arise through collaborative efforts among people of different backgrounds.
The successful implementation of technologies and models are joint efforts of communities, societies, Governments and they are classic examples of people willing and incentivised to change mindsets and processes or build cultures that foster change.
By: Preetam Bose, Senior Telecom, IT Professional and Cloud Specialist